Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Feature Creep

Every time there is some article on Slashdot about phones that are smarter or more interesting than the ones a year ago, there's always someone whining "I just want a phone why do I have to pay extra I only want to make calls why can't I just get a phone waaaah", completely ignoring that low-end phones are always available and you can, if you want to, ignore there's a camera or an text inbox on them. The only sympathy I have here is people who need to not have a camera on their phone for security reasons, they are getting problems.

What interests me is how the tenor of these posts have changed. First of all, finally people are responding with a STFU, get the cheapest one, and just don't crack open the manual. But second, the whine has changed. It used to be "I just want a PHONE that MAKES CALLS." Then it was "I just want a PHONE that makes CALLS and DOES THE TEXT THING RIGHT" which means a leap in the USA. Now I just saw "I just want a PHONE that makes CALLS and does text and so I can check my emails why does everything have to have SO MANY FEATURES."

The really cheap people with not so much disposable income, young teens, want every feature they can get. Technology has now been completely mainstreamed: I remember 2 years ago watching The Young And The Restless and the teens were discussing using a USB key with a password logger program to get a login to check a guy's mails, and Mariah Carey is singing about being posted on YouTube and probably even knows what that means too.